


More Than Words

by Sway



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s02e03 School Reunion, Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sway/pseuds/Sway
Summary: And then the walls came tumbling down.
Relationships: Ten/Rose
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	More Than Words

**Author's Note:**

> refers to "School Reunion”, “Doomsday” but takes place after season 3. You figure out how that works ;)

The trip to Dowin had been rather uneventful, relatively speaking. Of course, there had been danger and threat and screaming, the whole lot. And then, there had been plenty of laughter. The Dowins knew how to brew one hell of a mean herbal tea.

Herbs, yeah right.

The Tardis was parked on a sloaping hillside just outside Dowin City. Due to some glitch in the power supply, they were forced to stay for the night. Or something like that for Rose had a hard time following the Doctor’s rampant rambling.

Now, while he was converting and recallibrating and whatnot, she sat outside the Tardis, gazing up into the violet tinted night sky. Somewhere admidst the discarded bits and pieces of the spaceship, she had dug up a pair of camping chairs and a gas lamp that cast off a warm, orange glow.

“The next time we go back home, remind to bring booze and cooler. If we’re stuck more often, we might as well get pissed,” she called back into the Tardis.

“I don’t drink,” came the Doctor’s voice from inside.

“Yeah, you do. You got wasted on my mom’s eggnog.”

“Did not.” The Doctor popped up in the open door. “What are you saying that for?”

“’cause I love to see you squirming.” Rose shot him a cheeky grin.

He looked at her for a moment longer before he disappeared again.

It took him almost an hour before he came back out, carrying a worn old blanket.

“You’re of no use to me if you’re catching a cold out here.”

Rose took the blanket from his hand, spread it over her, snuggling into it. It smelled of motoroil, tobacco and something else she couldn’t quite place.

“Do I want to know where you picked up at that blanket?”

“Nope.” With an exhausted sigh, the Doctor slumped down in the chair next to her, long legs sprawling. “Tardis should be charged by morning, we’ll leave then.”

“I like it here. Sky’s pretty.” She snuggled even deeper into the blanket. “We should do this more often,” she said then.

“Do what?”

“Take a break. We used to do that before, like that one time in Cardiff.”

“That wasn’t a break. That was a stop for fuel. Besides, we stumbled right into that Slatheen business. Hardly qualifies for a break, don’t you think?”

“Alright, point taken. I was just saying.”

They sat in silence for a while, just enjoying the brief moment of peace.

Rose knew that deep down the Doctor wouldn’t mind taking a break every once in a while. A great long while, but still. Not all of their travels ended in menace and destruction but she had seen it in his eyes at times. He knew how to hide it, knew how to veil it from her.

The exhaustion. The tiredness. The pain.

“Doctor, can I ask you a question?” she all but blurted.

“It’s not in my power to stop you, Rose Tyler.” He let his head roll to one side, looking at her, the glint of a smile twinkling in his eyes.

Before she spoke, she carefully choose her words. She knew he would get touchy around this, he always was. “Where you come from, did you have family? I mean, you don’t age, right? But you couldn’t have been born like this, could you?”

“Of course I had family,” the Doctor replied in his usual way of avoiding uncomfortable question. “Plenty of. Brothers, sisters. Great Uncle Ernie could belch the alphabeth backwards. Quite a hoot at parties.”

She glared at him. “You know what I mean.”

He remained silent for a while. “I did,” he said then, his voice sad. “I had family. Mother, father. A brother and a sister, both older. We… we reproduce just like humans do only that… uhm… on rare occasions.”

“Well, that sounds dire.” Rose couldn’t help but grin. “But now I got what Cassandra meant when she entered your body.”

At that, the Doctor straightened in his chair, interest perked. “What? What? What did she say?”

She had to keep from giggling. “She found your body… interesting. All those parts…,” she paused just like Cassandra had. “Hardly used.”

For the first time since she travelled with him, Rose saw the Doctor blush, his freckles fading a bit.

“Well, I… we would.” He took a deep breath, recollecting his thoughts. “As you said, we don’t age. We would have over-populated the planet if we…,” his voice trailed off as he looked back up at the sky. “But at least I don’t have childrend to mourn,” he added to quietly that Rose wasn’t sure if she was actually meant to hear it.

“Did you… have anyone? Back home?” she asked carefully.

It took him a long while to answer. “There was someone, a woman. Known her since we were children.” He paused. “ She’s gone now, too.”

“I’m sorry.” Rose faught the urge to reach out to touch his arm. “I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t… That’s good, that you…”

“What is this about, Rose? Why are you asking all this?” The Doctor interupted her ramble, suddenly unusually serious.

She froze, caught in the act. “I’m… I was just… I saw the way you looked at Madame de Pompadour. And when I asked you about Sarah Jane, you started to say something and then you… froze up. And I thought maybe you never… or maybe you couldn’t… I… Forget it, never mind. It’s just stupid.” Rose pulled the blanket up to her face, trying to hide the crimson that had crept onto her cheeks, turning away from his penetrating gaze. And then she realised what the blanket smelled like. It smelled like him.

The Doctor looked at her for a long while, than his eyes drifted up at the stars. He let out a long breath before he answered her. “What you want to hear… I am capable of saying it. And I have said it before.” He paused. “A long while ago. I was a different man back then. I told you why I never mentioned Sarah Jane. And these words… they have power. Wherever you go, time or space, the meaning of those words is always the same. They create a connection, a bond.” He hesitated once more. “And a bond like that is dangerous. I might be a Timelord, I might be able to go back in time but even I can’t take back those words. Once they’re out, they’re out. I have plenty of enemies out there, waiting for a chance to get to me. And to you.” He looked at her. When Rose turned to face him, she saw nothing but sadness in his eyes. “And that’s the one risk I won’t take.”

It took Rose a moment to take it all in. And then she smiled. “If you were just a regular bloke, I’d say you’re dodging the question.”

Infected by her radiant grin, the sadness slowly vanished from his features. “Good thing I’m not a regular bloke, then.”

“You’re certainly not.” She held out a hand to him, her eyes gentle, understanding. Slowly, his long fingers entwined with her’s, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.

They stayed like that for a while, hands joined, looked up at the purple sky.

“You will never stop, will you? Little breaks, yeah, but you will never stop.” Rose asked after a while.

“Nope,” the Doctor replied simply.

“Why? I mean if you wouldn’t… do what you’re doing, there wouldn’t be that much danger and you could…” Rose felt his hand stiffen in her’s, his fingers growing colder somehow.

“No,” he said again, more insistingly. “I can’t stop doing what I’m doing. You’ve seen the worlds out there, people need a little help from a doctor every now and then.”

“Yeah, that’s not the entire story, is it?”

The Doctor withdrew his hand from her’s, leaning forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees. “You’ve been in pain before, right? Physically pain. You come to find that when you inflict pain on one part of the body, the part that actually hurts stops aching for just a bit.” He squinted up at the sky, his eyes glittering.

As much as Rose hated it, she knew exactly what he meant. “You distract yourself if you keep moving.” He didn’t need to answer. “Always on the run.”

When he spoke, the Doctor’s voice was shaking just a little. “I can’t change what has happened. But maybe if I’m fast enough, one day I might unrun it.”

She looked at him and there was that look again. The exhaustion. The tiredness. The pain. “You might be the last of your kind, but you’re not alone."

***

Alone. Always alone.

Martha was gone. She didn’t want to stay with him. He could understand that after everything that had happened. Her family being in danger, the world literally turning backwards, meeting Shakespeare.

She’d been right. She had gotten out at just right time. He might have saved the universe oh so many times but when it came to that, Martha had been so much smarter than he was.

He should have never let it get that far. He shouldn’t have get attached to Rose. No, attached sounded as though she was a dog or something.

He should never have fallen for her.

He remembered a time when they had been stranded on some planet. He had lied to her back then. She had asked him if had ever said those words to anyone. And he hald told her ‘yes’. But that wasn’t true.

In all this time, he had never said them. Not to anyone.

*

Something weird had happened today.

For now, today was October 20th 1985, London, Earth, Solar System.

He hardly ever came here again. Too many memories that he kept trying to run away from. Yet sometimes, he just wasn’t fast enough.

The Tardis had pulled him here, just in time stop a Sic (an Alien-tapir hybrid from outer outer space) from attacking a kindergarten barbeque. One of the teachers had basically begged him to stay around, get some food, mingle.

So he had gotten some food. He just didn’t mingle.

He had sat down on a bench underneath an old oak tree, munching on a blueberry scone, when something caught his attention. Something up in the air.

When he looked up, the single page of a newspaper came sailing down from up above.

He snatched it out of mid-air, smoothing it out. “Loveletters” was stenciled in big black letters at the top. He frowned at that but he wouldn’t have been him if his interested wasn’t perked. Reaching inside his jacket, he pulled out his glasses. The very first letter all but jumped into his eye.

It wasn’t just a typed-up text. It was a copy of the original. It was a piece of stationary, a Hello Kitty head at the bottom. The small page was filled with girly handwriting, only the name at the top and the signature were crossed out, apparently to protect the author’s privacy.

_“I know that you will never read this. And how could you? There is no way. I just write this down to get it out of my head. It won’t help much but it’s the only thing I can do._

_You once told me that words have power. Those words you never had the time to say. It’s funny, you know? We never seemed to have enough time._

_I can’t tell you how much I wished for you to say those words back then. I knew it, all along. I just wished to hear them from your mouth. Just once. But it’s too late now. Or not time yet, I could never get that quite right._

_There is a saying. That love can move mountains. Well, actually it’s belief but it got me thinking. I know that we’re not allowed to, that it’s not possible. But maybe it can also tear down walls._

_So if you ever come to read this… if you ever get the chance… if you could just say those words. Just once._

_Thank you._

_I love you.”_

Tears were running down his cheeks, blurring his vision. He took off his glasses, wiping them away with the back of his hand.

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.

Well, he’d seen some things he hadn’t thought possible during his travels but this literally could not be. And he knew exactly who this letter was from and who it was meant to be for.

And then something else caught his attention. He put on his glasses again as he looked at the date line.

July 24th 2007.

It was a page of the London Times of July 24th 2007.

He had never really believed in signs or foreshadowing or anything like that. Prophecies were lost on him for he knew that future was not set in stone. Everything could be changed. If someone just believed hard enough he could change anything.

Move mountains. Tear down walls.

Possible or not. Allowed or not. Just for a second, for one tiny little fragment of time, he didn’t care.

For the first time in his entire existence, he said those words.

“Rose Tyler, I love you.”

And then the walls came tumbling down.


End file.
